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This, of course, still needs a hook. Depending on the topic, you’ll need to offer some background or context. It’s also a good idea to mention the debate/discussion surrounding the topic. In other words, you might be arguing that something is good, but what do the people who disagree with you say? If there are two sides to the topic, then that makes it relevant and interesting. Then, segue into the three points you intend to make in the paper and give us a preview of them.

Your thesis should be something like:

Liberalism was the dominant political discourse in Latin America during most of the nineteenth century. Initially, in the first half of the century, it was a discourse of liberation from colonial rule in Hispanic America. Later, in the second half, liberalism was firmly established as an ideology of nation building in most of the region. However, by the mid twentieth century, liberalism had mostly vanished from the political scene, except for the case of Colombia where the liberal party continued to be a live political option until the end of the century. Despite the fact that it became the dominant political discourse in the nineteenth century, there is no such thing as Latin American or Hispanic American “liberalism”, if by the latter we mean something like a unified and internally coherent political theory. Instead, what emerged in the nineteenth century was a political movement that can appropriately be called “liberal” to the extent that political actors either espoused liberal ideas or identified themselves as “liberals”, or both. Though such a political movement began to take shape in the aftermath of the wars of independence from Spain and Portugal, self-identification as a member of a liberal group became possible around the mid-century when the liberal position became more definite in relation to the conservative political opposition.

A difficulty for the reconstruction of liberalism in Latin America lies in the fact that political actors primarily employed liberal ideas in order to press for specific political ends but were not greatly concerned with systematic theorizing. Liberal intellectuals were public figures who engaged in the task of advocating liberal ideas in order to transform their new societies in light of them. They were mainly concerned with the practical tasks of constitutional design and institutional reform. Thus, the liberal movement emerged mainly in political and legal practice, not in theoretical works. Liberal intellectuals expressed and developed their views in the numerous constitutions that they produced, in legal commentary, and in the public debates that took place in pamphlets and newspapers. This may be the reason why the reconstruction of Latin American nineteenth century liberalism has been dominated by historians, while philosophers and political theorists have been mostly absent. Nevertheless, this reconstruction is also of philosophical interest for at least two reasons. First, the most prominent liberal intellectuals, such as Juan Bautista Alberdi in Argentina, José María Luis Mora in Mexico, and José Victorino Lastarria in Chile, did develop distinctive liberal positions that are worth examining. Alberdi and Lastarria, in particular, also produced theoretical works in which they systematized their own political convictions. Second, though it is not straightforward to identify what exactly was meant by “liberalism” in each region at each particular time since public intellectuals expressed a plurality of views, it is not difficult to see that distinctively liberal positions developed in response to local political problems. In the various regions of Latin America, liberalism developed in different directions according to the political problems that political actors considered most pressing. Since what was meant by “liberalism” turns out to be sometimes surprising from a contemporary perspective, the consideration of nineteenth century Latin American liberalism can contribute to enrich our current understanding of liberalism as a far more internally heterogeneous ideology than is usually assumed.

In light of the variety and complexity of Latin American liberal views, this entry provides only a brief and general introduction to the topic that is far from being the whole story. Since the heyday of Latin American liberalism took place in the nineteenth century, this entry privileges this historical period, though the last section focuses on the decline of liberalism in the twentieth century and its modest revival in recent decades. In order to adequately present the liberal political movement, it has been indispensable to provide the highlights of the social and political context that motivated the initial enthusiastic appropriation of liberal ideas as well as their further development. This entry also provides closer though brief approximations to the views developed by the most prominent liberal intellectuals mentioned earlier, namely, Alberdi, Mora, and Lastarria. Since they articulated their own views in quite different political contexts, their respective liberal views differ greatly from each other. Though the entry is organized thematically, it also roughly follows a chronological order. The first section offers a brief overview. The second section presents the influence of Spanish liberalism in the initial reception of liberal ideas around the time of the wars of independence in the early nineteenth century. The third section presents early Hispanic American liberalism as an emancipatory ideology that commanded wide acceptance among the elites. The fourth section considers the transition from the initial constitutional optimism to the search for alternative ways for bringing about the much desired social and political change. The fifth section focuses on the ideological conflict between liberals and conservatives around the mid-nineteenth century. It was in the midst of this conflict that the liberal faction acquired a specific political identity. The sixth section presents the liberal anticlerical response to the religious problem. The seventh section considers the influence of positivism and the triumph of liberalism as an ideology of nation building. The final section briefly considers the decline of liberalism in the early decades of the twentieth century.https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/liberalism-…

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism-lati..

.https://study.com/academy/lesson/liberalism-radicalism-and-republicanism-in-the-1800s.html